New York’s Jewish Museum also got into the act, buying one of the items featured in this CultureGrrl Video—a north German bronze lion-form aquamanile, late 12th century, with Hebrew inscription (probably added around the 16th century). It sold to the museum for $377,000 (presale estimate: $200,000-400,000).

Hebrew inscription on body of the lion, commemorating its acquisition and donation by a Jewish owner (apologies for reflections on lion’s head)Photo by Lee Rosenbaum

In all, the sale brought $8.51 million, not counting the Mishneh Torah, which was jointly purchased, prior to the auction, by the Met and the Israel Museum. It went for for an undisclosed price that Sotheby’s said was “significantly in excess” of the previous $2.9-million record for Judaica at auction.

The total for two-session, day-long Steinhardt sale was a record for any Judaica auction, Sotheby’s said. The sale was a healthy 92.6% sold by lot; 84.9% by dollar.

A major failure was the 18th-century German silver Sabbath and festival hanging lamp from Frankfurt (also featured in my CultureGrrl Video), which was bought in at $700,000 against a presale estimate of $800,000-$1.2 million.

For identification of other museum buyers at the sale, go here. For the top-10 price list, go here. If the Met eventually issues a press release about its Steinhardt acquisitions, I’ll update here with a link.

CultureGrrl

I’m a veteran cultural journalist and lecturer with many pieces in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and major art magazines. I've been a cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC and WQXR) and provided arts commentary on NPR [Read More …]